Houston
Chronicle
Sept. 18, 2003, 7:17PM
Textbook debate: It's all about the evidence
By STEPHEN C. MEYER
CYNICAL old lawyers have a maxim: When you have the facts on your side,
argue the facts. When you have the law on your side, argue the law. When
neither
is on your side, change the subject and question the motives of the opposition.
That seems to be the strategy of many Darwinists now that the Texas State
Board of Education has begun to evaluate whether current biology textbooks
meet state
standards for accuracy in their presentation of Darwin's theory of evolution.
Consider what happened at last week's hearing of the Board of Education
in Austin. There, numerous Texas scientists, educators and students
asked the
board to insist that textbooks comply with state law by correcting
factual errors in current biology textbooks and by presenting both
the scientific
strengths and weaknesses of Darwinian theory.
This seemingly reasonable request elicited a torrent of personal
abuse and misinformation from those lobbying for Darwin's theory
to be presented
uncritically.
Motives were questioned. The subject was changed. Steven Schafersman
of Texas Citizens for Science even compared those asking for full
scientific disclosure
to Stalinists and Nazis!
Some reporters and editorialists joined the misinformation campaign,
warning (falsely) that textbook critics want to teach the biblical
account of creation
in the science classroom. And defenders of the current texts dismissed
all scientific critiques of contemporary Darwinism as religiously
motivated .
Yet these claims are as irrelevant to assessing the question before
the board as they are hysterical and misinformed.
First, it's not what motivates a scientist's argument that determines
its validity; it's the evidence. Even if all scientific critics of
Darwin's theory were motivated
by religious belief (and they are not), their critiques would still
need to be judged by the evidence.
Motives don't matter in science. Evidence does.
If this weren't the case, then several Darwinists who testified at
last week's hearing would be sorely out of luck. Schafersman, for
example, is a self-described
secular humanist who has written that supernaturalistic religion
and naturalistic science are and will remain in eternal conflict.
Does
Schafersman's
anti-religious
motivation invalidate his support of Darwinian evolution? Of course
not.
The same standard should apply when considering scientific critics
of Darwinism. True, some scientists critical of contemporary evolutionary
theory also
favor a new alternative theory called intelligent design. Darwinists
say such religious-based
ideas cannot be science. But the theory of intelligent design is
not based on religious doctrine. It's based on scientific evidence.
For
example,
the leading advocate of intelligent design, Lehigh University biochemist
Michael
Behe, bases his case for design on intriguing new evidence: the miniature
motors and complex circuits now found in cells.
Some may decide that Behe's conclusions lend support to their religious
beliefs. But that does not mean that his theory is based on religion,
only that it may
have theistic implications. But so what? Many Darwinists, and even
some Darwinist textbooks, openly state that Darwinism has anti-theistic
implications.
Implications
don't decide the truth of theories either. Evidence does.
In any case, design theorists are not the only scientific critics
of Darwinism, and those asking for more accurate biology textbooks
are
not asking for
the theory of intelligent design to be taught. Instead, they are
asking that students
learn all the evidence they need to assess Darwinian theory, not
just the evidence that happens to supports it.
Peer-reviewed scientific literature now documents the existence of
many problems with current evolutionary theory and with the textbook
presentations
of that
theory. For example, at least three of the texts currently used in
Texas use discredited 19th century diagrams of embryos as support
for Darwin's
universal
common ancestry thesis. These now infamous Haeckel embryo drawings
allegedly demonstrate the similarity of the early embryological development
of
fish, chickens, pigs and humans. Yet scientists have long known that
these different
vertebrate classes do not strongly resemble each other during early
embryological development. Why must this inaccuracy persist in Texas
textbooks?
The law of the land also supports this approach, as does our national
education policy. In 1986, the Supreme Court ruled in Edwards v.
Aguillard, the controlling
legal authority on how to teach about origins questions, that state
legislatures could require the teaching of scientific critiques of
prevailing scientific
theories. Last year, in the No Child Left Behind Act Conference Report,
Congress expressed its support for greater openness in science instruction,
citing biological
evolution as the key example.
Teaching both the strengths and weaknesses of Darwinian theory will
engage student interest and teach them to weigh evidence -- a key
skill in scientific
reasoning.
As Charles Darwin himself wrote in the Origin of Species, a fair
result can only be obtained by balancing the facts and argument on
both sides
of each
question.
HoustonChronicle.com -- http://www.HoustonChronicle.com | Section:
Viewpoints, Outlook
This article is: http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/editorial/outlook/2108157
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